Thursday, August 13, 2015

High School "Alphas"

I went to two different high schools, so I've always been
mystified about the Manosphere's delusions about the high
school quarterback being an "alpha" getting the prettiest girl -
the head cheerleader.

These are hallucinations.

The two biggest social groups in my two high schools were
the party group (which were the tail end of "the hippies" and
were given the to-me-still-odd name of "freaks"). This group
I belonged to.

The other big one were the athletes.

My sophomore and junior years the high school quarterback
was big, dumb and ugly (I was once asked if I was him
since we shared the last name). The last time I saw him he was
selling insurance, and when I think of high school quarterbacks
the first vision I get is of Al Bundy.

I knew the cheerleaders quite well, since my sister and cousin
were ones. None of the cheerleaders were the best-looking
girls in school or the most popular.

My senior year the quarterback was a lot better-looking than
the one I knew my sophomore and junior years, but still not the
best-looking or most charismatic guy in school. He was just
a normal guy, nothing more, except he had high-school-level at talent
at throwing a ball.

On the other hand, my social group had the best-looking girls
and the most good-looking boys. We, after all, were the most-fun
group, which is why we had bonfires on an island attended by
several hundred people. We also had the one big, handsome charismatic guy
in high school. Out of several hundred, just one, and he's
basically gone nowhere since high school.

On top of all this, none of these groups were a big
social group with a hierarchy. There were
groups within groups, usually about four to a group. In my
group I belonged to about four of these, and I was the only
one who did.

However, when there was a party all of us got together. That
was the only time.

How some of the Manosphere got the idea about the QB and
the head cheerleader being at the top of a (nonexistent)
hierarchy is beyond me, unless these guys have some problems
and, as I said before, are trying to convince you their
problems and envies are your problems and envies.

When I got into college (I went to two) the high school
social groups completely evaporated. The athletes still
existed but, again, the quarterback was not the most popular,
charismatic guy in school. He was just a guy, and there was
nothing
special about the cheerleaders, either.

When I see Vox Day (and others like him) posting theories about the "alpha" being the quarterback dating the prettiest cheerleader,
and then remembering he's an insignificant over-the-hill athlete...that's what I mean about the believers trying to convince you their problems and envies are yours.

None of the social groups in high school had an inherent
hierarchy. The athletes, to a degree, did (based on talent and
skill), but that hierarchy
was really imposed from the outside, such as from people who
went to
see the high school football and basketball teams and made
a big deal out of the quarterback and the player who
scored the most point on the basketball team.

When I got out of high school I did notice a hierarchy
in the workplace, and found there was very little good about
it.

There really is an Old Boy's Network, and it was not
based on competence but who you knew. I knew some who
were truly utter catastrophes and were so bad they finally were
removed...one time after seven years.

I have never seen a hierarchy of the best-looking and most
charismatic at the top, except for entertainers, and who the
hell cares what they think about anything? As for female
actors, once their looks start to go away, they become
invisible and can't find roles.

As for male actors who can still find roles, we're looking at
a dozen guys - Sean Connery, Robert Redford (who ain't
looking so good these days) the late Paul Newman, Brad Pitt,
George Clooney, Matt Damon.

I doubt I can even name a dozen. And all of these actors
are so far above the common man this can't even be considered
a hierarchy....and again, that hierarchy is really imposed by
the audience.

For that matter, aren't all hierarchies imposed from the outside,
based on what the people want? If we lived in tribes of 30 or so,
those at the "top" of the hierarchy would be those who contributed
to the survival of the tribe.

I am reminded of Thomas Berger's wonderful novel, Little Big
Man, in which there was a War Chief - and a Peace Chief. There wasn't one for both, because they don't exist.

The Manosphere's hierarchy of Alpha/Beta/Gamma/Delta
is so screwy it's not even worth taking seriously, except to
criticize it. That Greek alphabet soup doesn't exist. It's something
the screwballs are trying to impose from the outside and who are
trying to convince the naive that it inherently exists...with them
at the top, of course.

Now imagine what problems the True Believers have,
when they spend a large chunk of their writing career
expounding on these categories and trying to expand them?

Again, they are trying to convince you their problems
are your problems. Just how blind and deluded
are these people, that they don't know what they are doing in trying
to impose their delusions on people?

11 comments:

DeNihilist
said...

Ah but Bob, Being The Primo PUA Of All Time (henceforth BTPPUAOAT), I have to take umbrage with this post! Of course the best looking dude gets the best looking chick all the time! And of course he gets the most plum jobs and assignments. And of course when he dies, God can't wait for him until judgement day, so he literally raises him from the dead! That is why whenever you attend an BTPPUAOAT's funeral, it only takes 2 small, 10's, feminine women to carry the casket, as there is no body inside!

When I worked as a mechanic, the defacto leader was the guy who still had most of his finger tips and hadn't destroyed any engines lately. Formal or informal hierarchies are probably much more likely to form in situations that involve some danger or skill.

In middle school and high school it seemed like there was always someone's older brother setting the agenda for the night and driving us somewhere. I don't remember the quarterback, but I knew the star of the hockey team. He was a cool guy, but he wasn't anything like VD's concept of the alpha. After I started driving and got my first real job, I dropped out of the high school social scene completely and went into a work/study program so that I had to spend as little time as possible at the actual school. I was associating almost exclusively with adults and for all purposes living like an adult by the time when I was 16. I remember feeling like I'd been released from prison and feeling sorry for the kids that I used to know who had to waste another couple years of their lives in that place.

As I recall it, the school system was a messed up, totally artificial environment. It is to normal children what a kennel or a zoo is to animals, and it results in behavior and socializing in teenagers that wouldn't happen otherwise. The manosphere seems to draw a lot of it's conclusions from the club scene and unhappy high school memories, which is how you end up with boneheaded stuff like Vox Day's alphabet of alphaness. I've spent some time around home schooled kids since my school days. The ones that I've met are so much more mature and academically advanced compared to the kids that I knew in high school, that to me it gives away the lie that public school is about anything other than forced indoctrination and socialization.

"As for male actors who can still find roles, we're looking at a dozen guys - Sean Connery, Robert Redford (who ain't looking so good these days) the late Paul Newman, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon."

You mean just classic leading men types who still regularly work after 40? Off the top of my head I think that you could add Deniro, Denzel, Matt Dillon, Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise, and it seems like there ought to be more. But then you don't see a lot of big movies anymore from former really big names like Dennis Quaid, Antonio Banderas, Al Pacino, Jeff Bridges, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner. Action stars like Bronson, Eastwood, Stallone and Schwarzenegger seem to stay around longer, and character actors like J.K. Simmons and Paul Giamatti will probably be working until the day they die. For almost all leading ladies, there is nothing but a desert of unemployment between the ages of 34-70.

LOL. Ol' Voxxie's theories are nearing the end of their shelf life. I pushed him over the edge a couple months back when I pointed out that by his own definitions - his son was a budding gamma! HAR HAR HAR! He also found out that his supposedly high IQ wasnt as high as he thought it was. Vox will not tolerate posters that are smarter than he is and I got the punt! HAR HAR HAR!

He does have his followers though, and he is capable of spectacular commentary. I really admire his successful defiance of the social justice faggotry and his assault on their hold of the SF genre. He also has a superlative understanding of today's feral woman and how to avoid and dispose of her. He is an intensely focused man, and perhaps a little too focused.

Kids don't grow up as quickly as they did in our day, Bob. In ten years time I suspect Vox may mature into a special man. He just needs to let go of his comfort zone with the kids and run with the big kids.

That's a good way to sum up his personality. Intense focus and passion isn't a bad thing but when it devolves into insulting other men because they don't subscribe or challenge your mode of thinking...then it is too focused.

The nonsense of the hierarchies that the manoshphereians permeate is so rigid that those who are connected to reality find it laughable. Although hierarchies do exist and hierarchies are fluid and based on context. For instance, if one were injured and needed a doctor and there were only a street cleaner and an engineer near said injured person, then those two would be absolutely useless, hence they would be at the bottom of the hierarchy. But if there were a doctor in the mix, then the doctor would out rank everyone else. And when the doctor completed their task, they would return more or less return to the same level as everyone else.

I was part of a party group. We were free to mingle with every other group to at least some extent which was an advantage. It meant we knew girls from every other group and also other high schools. We were also low key enough that we could get away with a great deal and not get caught. We weren't obvious troublemakers and we weren't supposed standouts so we didn't draw too much unwanted attention from the various authorities. It's the only way to go through high school as far as I'm concerned.

Good points but I still like the idea, which I think I got from Rob Fedders (No Ma'am) through you, that real alphas (natural leaders, if you will) build society, getting the prettiest girls; they are happily faithful to each other. (Most men aren't leaders; "beta" is normal, not weak. "Alpha" is extraordinary.) The player alphas, the ones the online PUAs talk up, are sociopaths as you say; the asshole stuff gets girls but destroys the people who play those games (both the women and themselves as you note) and destroys society.

In my office building, the high-status guys, top execs with power and confidence, are a head taller than me and are good-looking.

"In my office building, the high-status guys, top execs with power and confidence, are a head taller than me and are good-looking."

Have you ever heard of the Stanford prison experiment? I have several people in my family who work as upper level executives for large corporations in banking and business. They never struck me as anything special.

"For instance, if one were injured and needed a doctor and there were only a street cleaner and an engineer near said injured person, then those two would be absolutely useless, hence they would be at the bottom of the hierarchy."

True. Hierarchies are created by other people based on what people want or need. If there was no technology for movies or radio there would be no actors, and hence people could not create hierarchies into which actors and entertainers fit.